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"The at 2.0GHz, running at 1.0V, Silverthorne runs at 90C and dissipates 2W. The CPU temperature alone should be indication that this is too hot for an ultra small iPhone-like form factor"

When the specs state TDP power at a given temperature, they are not claiming that the chip will dissipate that high of a temperature. They are baselining the TDP measurement, because leakage varies over different temperatures, and TDP needs to account for worst case conditions. It is standard practice to use the max Tcase temperature as a baseline, which is the temperature that the chip cannot exceed without permanent damage. Most chips operate WELL BELOW this.

While I cannot argue that Silverthorne would be inappropriate for iPhone, it is not because of the 90c degree specification. The 90c degree measurement only refers to where the thermal contraint specification has been measured. Reply

I don't think so, the chip uses too much power. To give you an idea of the DS's power consumption, it comes with a 3.7v 1000mAh battery (in other words, 3.7watt-hours). Given that the DS lasts over 10 hours, you're looking at an average power consumption of 370mW for the entire device, meanwhile Silverthorne (just the CPU) is around 600mW before any other chips are added. The PSP/DS have the same power/thermal envelope as the iPhone, so you can count Silverthorne out of any similar device. Reply

this just doesn't make sense... if it uses (and dissipates) less power than the scaled-down core cpus that are already in UMPCs, why would it's temperature be higher? why would it be harder to cool? why would it not be feasible for UMPCs?

"Inevitably the comparison to VIA's recently announced Isaiah CPU will be made, but Silverthorne is really aimed at a different market. Isaiah is a higher performance out-of-order core, while Silverthorne is eventually designed to make its way into highly integrated CE devices. We expect VIA's latest creation to outperform Silverthorne"

I've never believed I'd live to see that - VIA outperforming Intel.
True, they might be targeting different power envelopes, but certainly Intel used to run circles around its competition from VIA Reply